The Afterlife's Crisis
by DaPsionicFox
Summary: He found himself in a hellish Afterlife with no memory of who he was and a vague instinct that he couldn't identify. While he struggles to regain his lost memories, he must team up with a certain boy to stop the darkness of this world and restore the light.
1. The Middle of Nowhere

**Heya, this is my first time writing an Angel Beats! fanfic. I wanted to continue the main storyline, going by the alternate ending that the anime has shown, but with more time elapsed since then. Enjoy.**

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 **Chapter 1: The Middle of Nowhere**

I opened my eyes and the first thing I saw was smoke. It was like as if there was a fire nearby. Alarmed, I sat up and looked around. There was a fire nearby, and around it were the ruins of a destroyed building. The building looked like it would've been a big one if it was still standing. I surveyed my surroundings. The whole area around me looked like as though it had already been burned down for days.

The last thing I remember before waking up here was being at a storefront, and then hearing a crashing sound from above. Everything went black at that point. I couldn't remember anything else. Not even my name. I had to assume that I passed out from a collapsing rooftop.

Before I could put any thought into who I was before, I heard the sound of something exploding, and the screams of people. More smoke filled the sky, and suddenly a whole bunch of teenagers came out of nowhere, carrying guns. Another group appeared on the other side, and they began firing at each other. It caused dust to kick up, and I couldn't see anything around me. I tried to get out while keeping low to avoid getting shot. Somehow I knew that if I kept low, I had less chances of getting struck by a bullet. I knew that there was no time to stop and wonder what was happening. I had to get out of there unless I wanted to die, because getting in between a group of boys and girls with guns is not something to play around with. Especially if it's war. And it's almost like one anyway.

Suddenly someone grabbed my hand and yanked me up. It was a red-headed teenager wearing a strange uniform, and he rushed to the nearest rubble and hid behind there, dragging me with him. He peeked out from behind it, looking at the ensuing fight before running off, taking me with him. I knew he was trying to get me out of the war zone area, but I needed to know if he could be trusted.

"Who are you and where are you taking me?!" I shouted over the noise.

The guy didn't answer, and instead, he ran towards the woods nearby.

"He's there!" I heard somebody shout. "After him!"

The guy who was dragging me along with him ran even faster into the woods to the nearest bush. He made his way to a tree with some bushes in front of it. He pushed the bushes aside and revealed a hole at the trunk of the tree. He jumped down inside the hole, and I fell with him. The hole wasn't very deep, and after he covered the entrance with the bushes, the guy took me deeper into the hole. He had a lantern in his other hand, and we went down into what appeared to be a somewhat crude underground room. He put his lantern on a table and turned back to the entrance. He appeared to be listening to outside, and he was carrying something under his uniform. I guessed that it was a gun and he was prepared to attack if somebody were to peer into the entrance. Something told me that I should ask questions later.

"Did you find him?" I heard a girl's voice say from right outside the entrance.

"No, I didn't," another voice, belonging to a guy, said.

"Damn, we lost sight of him again..." a third voice, belonging to a guy, swore.

"He keeps vanishing into the woods here, but where could he disappear off to each time?" the second voice that had spoken wondered.

"On top of that, we've spotted him for all these years and he's always gotten away from us!" the girl's voice said in frustration. "Where the hell has he always been hiding anyway?!"

The girl sounded like she'd be a very vicious person if I were to meet her.

"But... did you notice that he was taking a guy with him?" the third voice asked.

"Yes, I know that!" the girl said, sounding like as if it was very obvious.

"It's very likely that he was taken to his hiding place," the second voice said. "Maybe we should find him to get him in our army so he can spill us where the hiding place is."

"Did you get a good look at him?" the girl asked.

"No," the second voice answered.

"I didn't either," the third voice answered.

"Damn it!" the girl sounded very pissed now. "So none of us saw who that other guy was?! Geez... our one chance to find him and we didn't get a good look at that other guy... Maybe he'll show up somewhere else later on... If you see any random guy who isn't on our side or the other, capture him. He could be that guy..."

Wonderful. Now I'm a target... of whatever kidnapping they were planning. There were the sounds of footsteps outside, and they gradually faded away. The guy then went to the back of the room, put the object he was hiding his uniform away, and turned to me.

"Are you okay?" he asked. He looked legitimately worried.

"I'm fine," I answered. "Who are you and what's going on?"

The guy looked puzzled for a split second. "I'm the former Student Council President," he answered.

"Former Student Council President?"

"Back when the school was still standing... By any chance, are you new here?"

I was not sure what he meant by being new here, but what I can say for certain was that I have no idea where I am. "Yeah. I woke up and found myself in the middle of a war zone."

The guy looked sorrowful. "That's pretty much how it is around here now... I thought you were a soldier trying to escape."

Soldier? I need to question this guy further. "Sorry, but what's your name?"

"My name is Otonashi Yuzuru. Your name is...?"

I paused. What was my name again?


	2. The Afterlife

**Chapter 2: The Afterlife**

"Ah, seems like you have amnesia," Otonashi said. "You'll remember your name sooner or later."

"How did you know?" I asked.

"Amnesia is common here, and it's okay if you have it," he replied.

"Why is it common here?" Has the whole world gone cursed?

"It's a lot to explain. But what I'm about to say is the truth, so please listen carefully. This is the world of the afterlife. We're all dead."

I stared at Otonashi in disbelief. "Dead?"

"A lot of people react that way when they find out. But not everyone who comes here has amnesia."

I couldn't accept that I was dead. Not when I'm right here and breathing. At first I initially thought that this Otonashi guy was lying to me. But after I had more time to put some thought into it, he was the one who saved me, so he might be telling the truth. I decided to ask him more about this weird place.

"OK, so we're all dead here…" I said. "Putting that aside, what was going on out there?"

"There's a war going on right now…" Otonashi said sorrowfully. "I can't stop the war myself, and it'll be never-ending at this rate."

"Why?"

"Because you can't get more dead than dead."

OK, that made my head spin. "I'm not following you there. What exactly do you mean?"

"You need me to give you an example?"

"Please do." Anything that would actually make sense for once would save me from a big headache.

"For example you get shot by a gun. You will feel the pain, but you can't die."

That just made it sound like we're all immortal. "You're saying this is because we're already dead?"

"Exactly."

I still didn't get it. "Can you tell me it in a better way than saying it's because we're already dead?"

Otonashi had an apologetic look. "I'm sorry, but that's the best way I could explain it."

This was very frustrating. "Ugh… But why is there a war out there?"

"I have no idea myself. One day the school got bombed, so I ran here for safety."

"So you've been here ever since? How long have you been hiding here?"

"Hmm… I'd say almost fifteen years now."

My eyes widened in disbelief. "Fifteen years?! That means you were a kid when this happened?!" Could this guy have survived on his own as a kid anyway?

"No. You can't age in this world."

"In other words, we will look like this forever."

"Right."

I was still skeptical. I had been hoping there would be some very good explanation. But putting that thought aside, I then remembered someone shouting that this guy was "here" and then we were chased. "There were some people looking for you."

"Ah, right. Yeah, some of the people in this war are after me."

"Are you special or something?"

"No, I'm not special at all."

I tried another possibility. "Are you skilled at fighting?"

"No, not really."

I needed to find out more about Otonashi himself. "How long have you been in this world?"

"A very long time… I lost count of the days that have gone by ever since I woke up here…"

So that would mean he's been here for a much longer time than I can imagine. "So the people here are after you because you've been here for a very long time?"

"I think you're right. I personally don't know the reason myself, but that's the only thing I can think of, since I know every inch of this world."

"So… you've actually walked around every inch of this world?"

"Yes. On some days, I'd take the time out to explore this world and map it. It's so I know what it looks like."

"If you say you've been here for such a long time, then there's no way to leave this world?"

"There is a way, but it doesn't apply to me. I normally wouldn't tell this to just anyone, but do you promise not to tell anybody at all?"

"Okay. I promise." Anything to get him to talk more about this crazy afterlife would do… if I'm really dead and sent here as my punishment.

"This world is here for teenagers who died with a regret in their lifetime. Once you fulfill your regret, you leave this world and "move on," which is what we call obliterating."

"Why doesn't this apply to you? Are you saying you don't have a regret in life?"

"That's right. As in result, I'm stuck in this world. All I can do is subtly help others fulfill their regrets for them to move on."

This wasn't making any sense. "So how did you get here if you didn't have a regret?"

Otonashi looked pained for a split second. "Before I died, I left my organs behind in the living for others in need. There was a girl with heart problems who had my heart, and her regret was that she never got to thank me. So that's why I was brought into this world, and since I don't have any regrets, I can't leave."

"Are you okay?" I was sure Otonashi looked like he was about to cry.

"I'm fine." Otonashi looked as though he was forcing a smile.

I decided to not press on the subject any further. "… I see. So let me get this all straight. This world is where all the dead teenagers go because there was something they regretted in their lifetime. The purpose for this world is for them to fulfill their regrets and move on."

"Yes, you're right."

"But since you had no regrets and you were here because of a girl regretted not saying something to you, you can't leave." This made me wonder what it feels like to be eternally trapped in this world.

"Right."

Right then, I began to feel bad for Otonashi. If he was doomed to stay in this world forever, he would make friends and they would later leave him, so he would have to repeat seeing his friends leave over and over again. He probably feels like an old man by now.

"I'm more curious about this war that's going on," I said. "Do the people know that you can't "die" in this world? Won't that make the war pointless?"

"It would make it pointless," Otonashi said. "I'm pretty sure they know, but I have no idea why they're still going at it. I can't investigate myself, because both sides are after me. All these years I've been trying to find a way to figure it out myself, but I could never find out anything… other than who's leading each side."

Everything Otonashi said was hard to believe, but at this rate, I have no choice but to trust him. That might explain my earlier memory of a rooftop collapsing above me. I have to assume that it was the cause of my death. Although I did not have solid proof that it was. If everything Otonashi said was true, this was making me wonder if the people who are participating in the war are dense. But then again, how would people carry on in a war for this many years like this? I don't remember anything important from my life, so I knew that for the time being, I'm going to have to live in this world. I really hope I wasn't brought into this world to live here for all eternity. The only way I'll know is to regain my lost memories. But I definitely didn't want to live in a war zone, so I made up a decision.

"Otonashi-san," I said. "I… I'll help you stop the war!"

"You will?" he asked, looking hopeful.

"Yes! I don't wanna live in hell, so I'll help you stop the war."

"Thank you. But I'll have to get you to take a bunch of risky missions. Is that okay?"

"Yes. You can count on me."

Otonashi went to the back of the room and took out a gun. "This was a gun left behind by one of my friends. I kept it, for worst-case scenarios like this."

"Who?" I asked.

"Her name was Nakamura Yuri," he answered. "I'll entrust the gun to you, since I'll be relying on you to run certain missions for me."

"Thanks." I got the gun from Otonashi, and when I got my hands on it, I felt a strange surge of excitement go through my body for a second.

"There aren't really many places to stay since the school is destroyed. This isn't much of a home, but I'll let you stay here."

I was about to say something, but then a thought struck me. "I… I remember my surname."

"Ah… what's your name?"

"It's Kosaka."

"Then, Kosaka… For right now, I need to think about how we should deal with this war. Let me give you something easy to do for right now, since this is most likely your first time handling a gun. Do you mind if you go out and look for some food and water?"

"No, I don't."

"Alright, thanks. I've been running low lately, and I couldn't find any time to sneak out and get some. Be careful while you're out there, because new people get taken by either side by force if they're not involved with the war yet. In the meantime, I'll think of a plan, and I'll ask you to help."

"Alright, got it."

I was about to leave when a thought struck me. "Wait a second… if we don't die, why do we need food and water?"

I was starting to feel like a nuisance to Otonashi, but he didn't look annoyed that I was asking so many questions. Maybe he's used to it.

"We still have our five senses, and we can still starve or go thirsty," Otonashi explained. "But the one thing that's different is that we can't die."

"So… we're pretty much alive, but dead, and we can't die again."

"I guess you can put it that way."

I was fixing to leave again when I remembered another thing. "Can I see a map of this place?"

"Oh, yes," Otonashi answered. "Let me go get it."

He went to the back of the room again and pulled out a very old map drawn on a large sheet of paper.

"Right here is my shelter," Otonashi said, pointing to a red circle around a tree in the woods drawn on the map. "The river is down that cliff, but you're going to have to go around to the bridge to get to the bottom of the cliff. Be careful going down there, because it's near the areas where the battles take place. I would like to give you this map, but I can't afford to lose it. I'm sorry, it's not that I don't trust you or anything, but I can't take any risks of it being lost outside where anyone can find it. They can use it to find where I've been hiding for all this time."

"It's fine, I just needed to find out roughly which way to go."

Otonashi looked like he was about to go put the map up until he looked at me. "By the way, Kosaka, you reacted a lot faster to lying in the middle of the battlefield than most others that come here. Most people would've been lying there panicking."

"Oh, about that…" I wasn't sure how to explain this, because it felt natural for me to do it. "It's strange, but I knew immediately I was in a war zone. I just thought I needed to get out as fast as I could before worrying about anything else."

"It didn't take you long to find out I've been hunted either," Otonashi pointed out.

"Yeah… somehow I can read situations accurately based on what I know… And I can read it pretty fast too… Speaking of that, I think I can figure out why you thought I wasn't new here. I did notice one side wearing some uniforms, and that's what I'm wearing now. And I believe when you saw me, I was crawling along the ground, and people do that to avoid getting shot and seen in the middle of a violent battle like that one. It would've been easy to mistake me for someone from that side of the battle."

"Ah… You're right…" Otonashi looked fairly surprised at how fast I figured it out afterward, and to be honest, I surprised myself at this feat as well.

"It's very hard to explain how I do it… I just see things, put them together, and assume what is happening at that moment… But anyway, I'll be off."

As I carefully left the underground den, I had a familiar feeling as I got out. I could not describe what it was, but I felt like I've done something similar to what I'm doing right now. It was making me have more questions about my past life. First, I felt like I was very knowledgeable about combat. Second, I felt oddly excited when I got ahold of Otonashi's gun, like as if I wanted to use a gun my whole life. And now, I felt like as if I've collected supplies once before.

I finally got to have a good look around the woods. The area around the den is charred. There were only a few sections of the woods where it was seemingly untouched by the war. It was a miracle to say that it wasn't burning down right now. Given the conditions of this place, it seems like both sides didn't fight much here. Strangely enough, I knew that the woods are a great place to ambush the enemy, but it was also a bad place to confront each other head on, because the foliage can easily catch on fire and can possibly cause problems.

I roamed through the woods and collected berries. They might be poisonous, but I'm sure that wouldn't matter if you can't "die" here. And besides, Otonashi's orders were to collect food and water. If he wasn't going to be specific, anything would do at this point. There're always food shortages in war anyway… wait. How did I know that?

I shook my head as I tried to push my thoughts aside. I'm outside of the safety zone, so I better stay focused and try not to get caught. I began crossing the bridge that led across a cliff to the ruined school.

"Hey, you!"


End file.
